Liberty to do sewer work for low-income residents

From Staff Reports

Published
6:47 pm CDT, Sunday, March 13, 2011

The City of Liberty, in accordance with an agreed order with the state, will either replace or repair “failing or inadequately designed private sewer lines, access units, and clean-outs” for at least 40 county low-income residences in order to offset a $36,733 administrative penalty that the state’s environmental agency assessed.

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality during the panel’s Feb. 23 meeting in Austin approved the settlement of the agency’s enforcement action.

The commission assessed the penalty because, according to its “findings of fact,” the city’s wastewater treatment facility, located near the FM 2684 and FM 3361 intersection, twice in 2009 discharged municipal waste, in excess of the state water code’s mercury “effluent limits,” into or adjacent to any water.

The commission also cited the plant’s failure to file with the state certain 2009 and 2010 monitoring reports. The facility already has complied with the reporting requirements.

Commission investigators cited the violations during a records review conducted on April 12, 2010, according to the agency’s violation summary.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development establishes guidelines by which the city may verify the low-income status of residents served by the city’s yearlong supplemental environmental project.

Such projects generally are the commission’s method of having environmentally beneficial tasks performed in affected communities. This way, the city can agree to sink the cost of the administrative penalty into helping its residents rather than paying the state treasury.